Digital audio workstation

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Music production using a digital audio workstation (DAW) with multi-monitor set-up

A digital audio workstation (D.A.W.) is an electronic device or computersoftware application for recording, editing and producing audio files. DAWs come in a wide variety of configurations from a single software program on a laptop, to an integrated stand-alone unit, all the way to a highly complex configuration of numerous components controlled by a central computer. Regardless of configuration, modern DAWs have a central interface that allows the user to alter and mix multiple recordings and tracks into a final produced piece.

The history of DAWs parallels advances in computer power with expensive-but-limited units becoming available in the 1970s, then more affordable PC-based systems in the late 1980s until today when a powerful system can be built inexpensively, using open-source software and consumer audio equipment even as a market exists for professional high-end systems, essential in any modern recording studio.